mystery-monger

English

Noun

mystery-monger (plural mystery-mongers)

1. A person who deliberately or habitually mystifies others.
   • 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter I, in The Parasite‎^[1]:

     I like none of these mystery-mongers, but the amateur least of all. With the paid performer you may pounce upon him and expose him the instant that you have seen through his trick.

   • 1916, William Le Queux, The Place of Dragons‎^[2]:

     "Curious affair, isn't it?" "Very." "Now, you're a bit of a mystery-monger, Vidal. What's your theory—eh?"

   • 1925 December, A. B. Walkley, “Pirandello, the Mystery-Monger”, in Vanity Fair‎^[3], page 58:

     But I began by calling him a mystery-monger, and it is perhaps time I made good. What I mean is this. Not content with serving up to you philosophic or psychological theories and using them, dramatically, for what they will carry, Pirandello frequently uses them for more than they will carry, and, as I think, deliberately mystifies you, for the sake of “getting away with it” in the confusion.

Derived terms

• mystery-mongering

Further reading

• “mystery-monger”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.